Content analysis of English traveler's translated books (itineraries) about Iran

This study is a survey of the English traveler's books (itineraries) which are translated into Persian. Method used is content analysis, according to the frequency of subject criteria. The research population is 60 travel books, from 64 travelers which are translated before 2005. Data were gathered by reading these travel books thoroughly and taking notes in details by the subject dealt. The results were organized in special tables for each class of subjects and the frequencies of subjects were counted. By analyzing these results, it is possible to say that because of the importance of travel books in the history of Iran and the need to an analytical survey on the different subject dealt in these books, this topic is chosen with the aim of supporting historians and researchers. Subject categories showed that travelers were interested in geographical situation of Iran (2376 times), they were written more about the climate, temperature, description and history of cities, rurals, and the geographical situation of them. There are 91 subject tables which belong to special subjects. From their expressed information, it is resulted that most of travelers (48 persons) were coming during Qajar dynasty, at the reign of the Naser-e-ddin Shah (16 persons), in the 20 century (33 persons), and during the 1900-1950 (26 persons). By studying their travel directions, in addition to determining their path from entering city to existing place in the country, the most visited cities were counted. Numbers shows that they were coming to Tehran more than any other cities (42 times), and Isfahan (31 times) and Qazvin (27 times) were in the second and third rank of attracting place for the travelers.